Thousands of visitors poured into the first day of a sunnier-than-usual Lamma show to peruse the latest and greatest in the world of agricultural machinery.

The event in Peterborough gives manufacturers and importers their annual chance to show off their latest machinery and equipment.

And while commodity prices may not exactly be something to write home about there was a feeling of mild optimism along the machinery aisles.

The choice of new kit – as ever – is huge, with drills, cultivations, sprayers  and tractors, not to mention smaller kit such as biomass boilers, log-splitters and workshop equipment. Here are seven machines that caught our eye.

Dal-bo Megaroll 2430

Dal-bo’s big 24m rolls debuted in Germany last year, but Lamma provided British punters with a chance to check out one of the market’s widest cultivation tools in the flesh.

The company reckons that, given its impressive width, it’s one of the quickest and cheapest ways of bashing out clods and forming a seed-bed.

However, the 25t of metal comes with some hefty horsepower requirements. Given the rolling resistance across its 24m width, it needs a tug of at least 300hp for flat fenland, or closer to 450hp if you are working on ploughed ground.

See also: Lamma 2016: Vicon Fastbale offers increased production

Dal-bo uses hydraulics to spread the weight across the machine and keep the pressing power the same over each of the nine sections. Impressively, the designers have managed to get the rig to fold within 3m for transport. 

The asking price is about £90,000.

Tecnoma Laser

The self-propelled sprayer market is one of the most competitive sectors in UK agriculture, as 25-odd manufacturers squabble over 260 annual sales.

Bateman continues to lead the pack, but French firm Tecnoma hopes to jump up the ranks with an updated version of its Laser front cab machine.

The chassis, engine and cab remain the same as the near-identical Berthoud’s, but there has been a reshuffle in the Tecnoma cab that has seen fresh switchgear fitted to the armrest.

Power is still provided by Deutz in the form of a 246hp block and drives through a transmission sourced from Bosch Rexroth. The update has seen an Eco mode added that reduces revs and trims fuel consumption.

The machine on the Tecnoma stand had a 4,200-litre tank, 36m booms and a 280-litre/min pump.

A fast-fill system cranks things up to 380-litres/min and the spec can also include automatic steering, section control and nozzle selection. The ticket price is £162,000.

K-Two Roadeo

The prodigious outputs of high horsepower AD crop harvesters has caused an influx of high-capacity trailers that give silage gangs some chance of keeping up with the foragers. 

K-Two’s latest trailer is a case in point and begins to fuzz the boundary between farm transport and commercial haulage. Standard capacity is 42cu m but adding greedy boards takes that to 50cu m, which equates to as much as 25t.

That puts the trailer perilously close to the road-going load limits even before it’s got a tractor on the front.

Empty weight is 9.5t, but to keep an eye on things buyers can spec an on-board weighing system. It adds about £5,000 and can be useful for calibrating foragers running with yield monitors. 

Like K-Two’s smaller trailers, the big boy also comes with a pushing front headboard that can be used to compress the load and squeeze more material in. A pressure-release system makes sure it doesn’t bend any metal in the process.

The retail price is about £60,000. If you order the trailer on air brakes then it is also fairly easy to remove the silage body and use the carriage to carry a different trailer section or muckspreader during the off-season. 

Fendt 1050

Fendt’s mighty 1000-series tractor is one step closer to making its way on to UK farms after turning up at this year’s Lamma show. 

The 500hp monster – thought to be the biggest conventional tractor available – was revealed to the press way back in 2014, but as yet punters haven’t been able to get their hands on one. 

However, now that the first tractor is in the UK, Fendt says its likely there will be a few working UK soils by the end of the year. 

Those in search of maximum grunt will be most interested in the flagship 1050. This pumps out about 500hp from its 12.4-litre MAN engine, which sends drive to the wheels via a beefed-up version of the maker’s Vario stepless transmission. 

A fully specced 1050 with Vario Grip central tyre inflation system will set you back about £310,000. Go for the smaller 1038 model in base spec and you will be looking at a smaller, but still eye-watering, £242,000.  

Moorend track conversion kit

Those tired of churning up the ground every time they take their loader to field might be interested in a track conversion kit from Gloucestershire engineering firm Moorend.

The maker’s custom-built track units come in a range of sizes to suit most machines and reduces ground pressure to around 5psi.

At the moment it has a full set fitted to a JCB TM320s pivot-steer, and apparently it’s been causing a lot less mess than its wheeled equivalent. 

The units are fabricated at Moorend’s own workshops and to help improve durability it uses solid polyurethane idlers. The tracks themselves come from Canadian maker Soucy. 

Fitting the units reduces top speed to about 20mph and they will set you back roughly £40,000.

Can-Am Defender

There were plenty of gleaming new ATVs and buggies at Lamma, but probably none quite as pukka as Can-Am’s new Defender buggy.

This new-to-the-UK model comes with a choice of either 800cc 50hp or 1,000cc 72hp Rotax petrol engines and there’s room up front for a driver and two passengers. Top speed is a brisk 60mph.

A lot of effort seems to have been put into the cab, too. All three seats can be moved and there’s a natty waterproof toolbox up front in the cab that can be taken in and out. The cargo box can carry 454kg, is tippable, and the tailgate alone is apparently strong enough to take 115kg.

You can also fit a rear window protector or a full bed wall extender to keep things from flying out the rear load area.

The HD8 model costs £8,165 without power steering and £9,832 with it, while the HD10 XT on show at Lamma costs £13,332. The HD10 is available now while the HD8 is likely to be on sale at the end of March. 

HM Trailer central tyre inflation

Central tyre inflation – which allows you to alter the tractor’s tyre pressures while you’re driving – has been around for a while. Fendt, for one, has had a system for some time, though it’s relatively expensive.

Now, however, there are two new systems on sale, both of them being shown at this year’s Lamma for the first time.

East Yorkshire company TractAir, best known for its tractor air-brake technology, was demonstrating a system based on components from German company PTG that allows the driver to alter the pressure in all four tractor wheels while the machine is actually moving.

That means you can keep tyre pressures on the land low to cut compaction and push them back up again when you go back on the road. It’s all done from the cab, with clever rotary valves allowing the air to get in and out of the tyre while it is actually turning.

Three systems are available, priced from £590-£3,500 depending on the degree of sophistication.

The other company offering a central tyre inflation system is Essex trailer maker HM Trailers. It has designed its own system to do the same thing with a trailer – alter the pressure in the tyres while moving.

It means you can run at much lower tyre pressures in the field and much higher ones on the road, says the company, rather than always having to put up with a compromise setting.

That also means lower rolling resistance on the road, it claims, less tyre wear and better fuel consumption.

HM Trailers also points out that its system doesn’t require rotary valves or external pipework as the air is pumped through a channel in the axle itself.